


By the Fireglow

by archea2



Category: Once and Future King Series - T. H. White, The Sword in the Stone - T. H. White
Genre: Adoption, Drabble Sequence, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Humor, Kindness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:33:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25366144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archea2/pseuds/archea2
Summary: Sir Ector's very first meeting with his (once and) future King.
Relationships: Sir Ector & Arthur Pendragon
Comments: 8
Kudos: 13
Collections: Multifandom Drabble 2020





	By the Fireglow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Verecunda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verecunda/gifts).



> I was glad to find a fellow T. H. White/Sir Ector afficionado (afficionada?) in you! Here's hoping my take on Sir Ector's debuts as a caregiver will please you.

The knock came at vespers, an _a posteriori_ oddity. Sir Ector’s eddication had taught him that when a quest finds you - the real thing, mind you, not the newfangled sort where you had to be self-aware and meta-medieval, and question the quest and your part in the quest and the in-built meaning of all quests (preferably quoting Norman Theory) before you got to first whack -, it does so at cockcrow. Or owlhoot. But they had just sat down to a good fire and a better supper when there was a rap at the door. 

“Drat,” said Kay, a precocious speaker.

* * *

“A babe,” said Sir Ector. “A _babe_?”

“Bad form,” said Sir Grummore, their sometimes guest, censoriously. “Droppin' babes all over other chaps’ castles. Like - like cuckoos, I say, and catapults. Catapults and cuckoos. Hardly cricket.”

Sir Ector glanced down at the swaddled lump in the stranger’s arms. There was no telling where the swaddling stopped and the beard began, until the former sneezed, and Sir Ector was put in mind of a time when his lady had laden him with another such bundle, laughing as he tried to feed salt in a silver spoon to Kay’s little rump.

“Still…,” he said.

* * *

The stranger was nothing if not imprecise. He’d entered muttering “Live long and prosper”, quickly followed by “Blast! Wrong multiverse”. And then he’d ignored Nurse’s drum-fire inquiries as to cauls, teething, worming, mush times and privy times, to say nothing of the babe’s parentage. 

“This child wants sanctuary. Be of good mirth, for he will bring honour to your name in -”

Here the figure paused and tossed the bundle to Sir Ector so he could rummage into his cloak and produce an abacus. “Fifteen years.”

“But -”

“Give or take a fortnight. You people _need_ to make up your minds about leapdays.”

* * *

And now the babe was stirring in Sir Ector’s arms, its face blossoming into view. It was bright inside out, perhaps because they were sitting near the hearth; and it was currently lost in selfless wonder at (a) the fireglow, and (b) Sir Ector’s moustache, once modelled after a description of King Vortigern’s by a passing minstrel. Sir Ector had been a mere lad, and the minstrel passingly drunk, but the description had stuck.

So did the moustache, when a small fist caught its end and tugged experimentally.

“Yes,” said Sir Ector, the tug resonating in his chest cavity.

* * *

“But you’re MY da!” 

“It’s Sir My Father,” the Sergeant-at-Arms, who at the time doubled as the Courtly Language Facilitator, reminded Kay.

“Bit of a pickle,” Sir Grummore confided to no one, “that foster business. If you ask me, quests are not what they used to be. In yon old days, the slayin' came first, then the maiden givin' thanks, _and_ then the bairn.”

“Nowel, Nowel!” Nurse marvelled. “And there I thought Good Sir Ector was long past his merrydoing age! To us a child is born, Nowel!”

“Arthur, actually. Not that any of you dunderheads care at this point.”

* * *

Indeed, Sir Ector neither cared nor heard. For a brief while, as the glow danced along the log, joining invisible dots, he held the child and let the warm haze envelop them. 

Later, he would tell Kay chivalry begins at home, and listen with a smile to his boy shortening the child’s name.

He would coax Nurse into double duty; and - painstakingly - write his stewart to sell another sliver of pasture.

And later, much later, he would send his King a gift that could be lit, and grow a flame, golden, that might go out - but never quite away.


End file.
